Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) released a new paper by Craig Copeland examining pension plan participation across the country and trends over time.

This paper closely examines the level of participation by workers in public- and private-sector employment-based pension or retirement plans, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's March 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS), the most recent data currently available. Among full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 21-64 (those with the strongest connection to the work force), just over 63 percent worked for an employer or union that sponsors a retirement plan, and 55 percent participated in a plan. The paper begins with an overview of retirement plan types and participation in these types of plans. Next, it describes the data used in this study, along with their relative strengths and weaknesses. From these data, results on participation in employment-based retirement plans are analyzed for 2007 across various worker characteristics and those of their employers. The paper then explores retirement plan participation across U.S. geographic regions, including a state-by-state comparison and a comparison of certain consolidated statistical areas (CSAs). In addition to the results for 2007, trends from 1987-2007 in employment-based retirement plan participation are presented across many of the same worker and employer characteristics as used for 2007. The paper concludes with a discussion of this study's findings.

About me

I am a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, where my work focuses on Social Security policy. Previously I held several positions within the Social Security Administration, including Deputy Commissioner for Policy and principal Deputy Commissioner. Prior to that I was a Social Security Analyst at the Cato Institute. In 2005 I worked on Social Security reform at the White House National Economic Council, and in 2001 I was on the staff of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. My Bachelor's degree is from the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. I have Master's degrees from Cambridge University and the University of London and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. I can be contacted at andrew.biggs @ aei.org.